Let's Pretend
by FrostedFire
Summary: Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy are put on the same assignment- to kill Dolores Umbridge. What ensues is not something that either of them could have dreamed of. Assassin AU, non-canon, no magic. Dramione.


**Author's Note:** Gooood evening, fanfic readers! This has been a super fun fanfic to write, and it was definitely a challenge to complete. Please review after you've read, be kind to your writers friends! I mean, I can't force you to review, but I swear it'll make my night. I'm one of those authors that responds to most reviews, too, even the negative ones- tell me what I need to improve on!

Selfish plug- hit up 'The Long Way Around', my multi-chapter fic. For fics involving Slytherins, hit up "Window Panes" and "Glass Shards".

Written for Hogwarts School:

Astrology Assignment: _Aquarius_. Prompts: _Draco Malfoy, aquamarine_ , _adoption_

Tri-Wizard Tournament Fic: _AU- Assassin, "Did you just say all that in front of the cashier? Aren't you embarrassed?" / "Nope, not at all." , Dramione, "Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?" Douglas Adams, the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_

Song Lyric Challenge _:_ _"But by night I'm a hell of a lover" - Rock Horror Picture Show_

* * *

LET'S PRETEND

* * *

" _No, I take it back! I take it back, I mean it," she sobbed, streaks of salty tears sliding down her face. Fingers dug into the light hair, trying to will it back into its original luster. "I didn't mean what I said, I swear. I would miss you, I will miss you. I can't do this without you, please!"_

 _She was bowed over his body, a picture of misery. Two lips, parted in sorrow, kept forming unspoken words over and over: I do care, I do care, I do care._

* * *

Hermione was more furious than anyone had ever seen. It was one thing to be partnered with Malfoy for a smaller job, but an assassination? That was infuriating. Even the normal bank job would have been difficult, something that would have been _just_ tolerable. This was too big for that, too big for any snotty mess ups because he couldn't fathom working with her. It was infuriating. She wasn't a second class citizen because she had just gotten off of desk duty, she was a full blown agent and she wasn't going to deal with any of his drama.

That was all Malfoy was, anyway. Drama. He thought that the world owed him for existing, he thought that his family's legacy was worth his weight in gold… He thought that by being put on such a high profile case he had finally made it, but Hermione knew the truth. Harry had just shoved them together because the other choice had been McLaggen, and she would take Malfoy over Cormac anyday.

She had never thought that she would take Malfoy over anyone, but she had, and now she was stuck with him for one of _the_ most important jobs in her life. It was horrifying, it was humiliating… And she had to pretend like nothing was bothering her, too, because everyone knew that he would take her discomfort and run with it.

He was already doing that, lips pulled into a grin and hair slicked back as can be. They had met up at work to discuss details, and Hermione was seriously regretting it. Already, Malfoy was smug as can be, leaning dramatically onto her desk. "Do you really think you can handle this, Granger?"

Hermione could feel distaste sitting in the back of her throat, a bitter almond feeling that she knew would last for hours. "Of course I can handle this," she hissed. The insinuation in his voice, the snide speech… She wanted to punch Malfoy in the face so hard that he would remember it for years. "I'm not-"

"Straight off the desk?" Malfoy asked, his lips pulled into a tight smile. "But you are."

She looked down at her desk for the briefest of moments, staring at the uneven stacks of notes and folders, the three-hole punch settled on top. Everything was in order: the pencils all sharpened to the same place, two pens total, and an eraser filled with little holes. Her eyes flashed up to meet his in record time, chin propped up. "Top scores, though. I beat yours by nearly thirteen minutes, made it back to start without a tail."

"That wasn't my fault."

Hermione arched a brow, glad to see the little grin wiped off of his face. "I made it all the way back without a tail. You had _three_ , all girls that you thought were flirting with you. Pig." Her spirits rose when he nearly crumbled, his shoulders sliding forwards slightly.

She was good at reading people. She had to be, she had to be able to figure out people when she was working. She had to read body language and feed that into her partner, she had to figure everything out on her own so that the field knew what they were doing.

They all got arrogant, after a while. They thought that they could do things by themselves, that they didn't need their desk to work with them… That was how they ended up dead, though. They were too courageous, they thought that they had everything under control… It was how they lost Lockhart two months ago, not that anyone was overly teary-eyed over it. He was too proud and ended up caught in the cross-fire.

"Now, I know that you're a bit jealous of my good looks getting all the girls," he began, flashing her a grin. "But you'll have to just get over it for a little while. Just one job, Granger. Can you handle that?"

She wasn't sure that she could, but Hermione wasn't getting much of a choice. She held her tongue all throughout the debrief, she had been silent through receiving their disguises, and she was mute when popping aquamarine contact lenses to disguise her dark eyes. Everything was riding on her being polite and nonconfrontational.

Because, really, they were trying to kill a major CEO. They were responsible for taking out Dolores Umbridge, and this wasn't something that they could do through an argument. Umbridge, head of Astrea Enterprises and royal pain in Hermione's ass. She regularly campaigned against those who didn't quite meet her standards of 'pure' and funnelled money into organizations that wanted to strip the rights away from those who were different.

They might have been assassinating her for someone else, but Hermione was thinking of it as her kill.

Well, hers and Malfoy's, which was just as annoying.

"I can handle it," she hissed through her teeth, moving the aquamarine stapler out of the way and picking up the files that she was going to need. "Can you?"

He flashed her a smile, his disgustingly white teeth flashing- actually flashing- in the light. "Of course!"

* * *

 _Fumbling fingers and no guns, they were doomed from the start. Where were the times when she could duck and roll without fear? She should have just stuck to the desk, she was better there. Fastest researcher, able to tell her agents what to do in a heartbeat…_

 _She thought that was why they were doomed; nobody was whispering to her, telling her where people were. This was a dark job, something Harry didn't want attached to them. He and Kingsley were keeping it in the quiet._

 _But someone had found out. She was ready. She had three guards on her, and Hermione was currently trying to get away from two of them._

 _She was strong, she was fast, but she was scared. That was the problem with being in sync with your partner, you worried about them more than you worried about yourself. She didn't know how Ron and Luna could do it, she could barely focus._

 _Hermione swung her fist and then the next thing she heard was a shot, a crack, a cry._

" _No-"_

* * *

"'Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?'"

Hermione whipped her head around, brows furrowed in confusion. "Isn't that from 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'?"

"But is it not perfect for this situation?" Malfoy asked, gesturing with the paper towels in his hand. Hermione had three containers of bleach and nearly dropped them when he whipped the paper at her head. "It makes a lot more sense than anything _you_ were saying."

She finished scrunching her face to arch a brow at him, trying to understand. She knew she had to be missing some vital information, something that he had thrown at her that she somehow had ignored… Because there was no way that anything she had said could have warranted that response.

They had been in the grocery store for a little over an hour, bickering over different types of bleach and mops. Malfoy had already insulted her three times, and then had promptly decided that he didn't _need_ the job, he had just been asked to do it. It "wasn't his cup of tea" and "her politics doesn't really offend me", but he had been placed on the assignment and was willing to do it.

She still wasn't sure where he had picked up the quote, or why, but that was Malfoy. He was confusing and ridiculous, and she _knew_ his blond hair was from a box, they had passed the exact one earlier. He was gangly and weird, and for some reason the back of his neck was far too tan for his body.

"What does that even mean, Malfoy?" she asked, dropping the containers of bleach into the basket. "Did you take a whiff of this?"

He gave her a dirty look, whirling back to look at the mops. "You know, this reminds me of my last hook up."

"Beautiful, Malfoy, but that isn't going to make me uncomfortable."

It _did,_ however, make her slightly irritated when he kept the conversation going up until they hit the register. "And I had incorporated something _really_ interesting with the mops that had got her going almost immediately," he was telling her, flashing a wink at the woman behind the register. "Private business owner by day…"

Hermione tried not to roll her eyes as he slipped easily into their cover. She placed the three containers of bleach on the rolling belt while Malfoy continued to talk, trying to ignore everything that he was saying.

"... But by night I'm one hell of a lover."

She slammed the container of cleaning wipes on the counter. "Hey! Enough!"

Malfoy shot her a grin and dumped a pile of cash onto the little table, counting out exact change. "What? Am I embarrassing you, love?"

"I hate you so much," she hissed, pushing the cart through the space and dumping it by the doors.

He whispered something to the worker and then grabbed their five bags of stuff, balancing them precariously on his arms until he got to Hermione, where he dumped three onto her. "No, you really don't," he insisted, tapping her on the head with the mop.

"Did you just say all that in front of the cashier? Aren't you embarrassed?" she asked, brushing away the sponge. She knew he was doing it to get on her nerves, to establish that he was taller and 'stronger'.

"Nope, not at all." He led her out the store and towards their rented van, humming a song that she was almost certain was from Rocky Horror. The more that she knew about Malfoy's weird media tastes, the more confused she was getting. Before they could pile anything into the van, he was grinning at her, acting like nothing in the world was bothering him.

* * *

 _They were fighting, fists and knees and elbows and wrists, blocking and parrying and ducking out of the way. She couldn't remember any of the technical terms, but she moved through the movements like she had been doing so for years. Beside her was a blond blur, rapidly jabbing at his own foe._

 _Her brain felt clearer than it had in weeks, and she could finally focus. Everything made sense, there was no sense of confusion and befuddlement running down her spine. There was only one thing on her mind: survival. It was the adoption of a base thought that kept her focused, kept her on her toes._

 _She had everything under control._

* * *

"Why _did_ you take this job?" Hermione asked, leaning back onto the musty motel pillows. The bed made a strange squeaking noise when she did so, and a less mature person would have burst into giggles.

Malfoy finished folding up a t-shirt, craning his neck to look back at her. "What do you mean?" he asked, tugging open one uneven drawer. "I already told you, it didn't matter to me."

Hermione smiled, slow and steady. "Except Harry said that this was a specific request case." She knew she had him, she had talked to her best friend earlier. Although the choice had been between Malfoy and McLaggen, both had asked to be on the case.

"No, it isn't," he insisted, shoving two more shirts into the drawer. A quick slam interrupted whatever else he was mumbling, though Hermione thought it sounded like " _stupid meddling bint_ ".

She shoved down the pillows to make more room for herself on the queen-sized bed, maintaining her grin. "Yes, it is. Harry's my best friend, he wouldn't lie to me."

Malfoy turned around, crossing the room to land on his own bed. "He's lying to you," he insisted. "I don't care about any part of this. I just like the feeling of taking someone's breath away. Better than sex."

"Kinda gross, Malfoy," Hermione said, arching a brow. "And a bit more sadistic than I pegged you for."

"What can I say? I'm always full of surprises."

* * *

 _It was easy enough to get in, especially after they had staked out the place three weeks in a row. They were established as the new cleaning crew, they knew who worked late and who left early. It should have been perfect, a simple job._

 _Nothing really worked the way that she wanted it._

 _She slipped over a splash of cleaning product, white sneakers squeaking loudly. Draco leaned over and steadied her, a gentle smile on his lips. Hermione rolled her eyes, but gently, not in the same way she usually had._

 _They crept silently up towards Umbridge's office, where they knew she would be. Twin smiles and dangerous glints, one hand holding the bleach and the other dancing towards the doorknob._

 _But nothing was right and Hermione felt it the moment that they took a step towards the frame. It was an uneasy pit that started in her stomach and rose up, like bile, making her uneasy and shaky. She knew that something was off, but she couldn't put her finger on it…_

* * *

You could really get to know a person in a week, especially when you're living out of a motel and have to clean an office building for a job. Hermione thought that she would never get used to Draco's strange ticks.

He knew the weirdest quotes, he would just pull them out in the middle of cleaning- random tidbits from movies like "Dark Shadows" and "Gilmore Girls"- and be appalled when she knew what he was talking about. He liked to put ketchup on everything, and he would get offended when she insisted it was disgusting.

And he sang, a lot. Mostly old songs, but she did catch him humming some Ed Sheeran one day, which was… odd. But it passed the time, mainly because he seemed to be adverse to talking about himself.

"Don't you ever _talk_?" she asked him, scrubbing angrily at a stain on the tile. Umbridge seemed to have a great love of coffee, and Hermione, being a tea person, was getting quite irate with how many coffee splashes riddled the office. "About family, friends, books?"

Draco grinned his stupid, sleazy grin. "Naw. I prefer being a man of mystery."

It had been a week since she had tried to ask him about taking the job, one week of avoiding the subject and talking about absolutely nothing. She knew that she was stuffy, it was something that she had been working on. But that shouldn't have deterred Draco from talking about everything. She could talk without lecturing. She wasn't _that_ bad.

"It's really not that attractive," Hermione muttered, shoving more weight into her scrubbing. "Especially since I know you have substance. You quote the weirdest things."

He got silent for a moment, and she thought that he was about to say something about anything- his life, his past, his present…

But he simply turned to her with his stupid grin. "Toss me the Clorox?"

* * *

 _It's annoying to know everything and nothing at the same time. She knew his movie taste and his favorite songs, but she still didn't know much about Draco's parents or his life._

 _She didn't know if he had siblings, but Hermione knew that he had seen 'Spy' seven times and thought it was a beautiful explanation for their lives. It was infuriating, it was frustrating…_

 _But they spent evenings watching whatever was on the tv, arms wrapped around each other for warmth and stupid jokes made at each other's expense._

 _But they kissed, once, twice, pretending like it didn't matter because there was no way Hermione_ liked _him or even tolerated him._

 _Draco pretended like he didn't care about Umbridge, like she didn't see his lips curl under each time she made a speech, like she didn't notice how he always left a little piece of garbage somewhere in her office that she wouldn't be able to find._

 _Hermione pretended like she hated the way he talked, like she despised each little comment he made and how they couldn't have a serious conversation, like she hated the snide words he would say about people and the way that he walked around like he owned the world._

 _It was working. It was working, they could pretend like everything was normal and everything was fine._

* * *

"Are you ready for tonight?" Hermione asked, tugging unruly strands into a braid. Their pile of cleaning supplies was, as always, in their crisp white van.

Draco shrugged his shoulders, not looking towards her. "I don't care," he said, just like usual. "It doesn't matter to me."

Irritation flashed in her eyes, and she whirled back to look at him. "I don't care about _you_ ," she retorted, sniffing in the same haughty way that she had learned from him. "But I at least pretend when we're making out."

She saw the hurt, she saw the way that he flinched, but they both straightened like nothing mattered, because they didn't _care_.


End file.
